In spite of recent advances in chemotherapy and radiation, cancer is one of the main causes of death at any age worldwide. In the United States alone there are almost three million new cancer cases diagnosed every year. The overall five-year survival is close to fifty percent for all patients, and the prognosis is still particularly bad for those patients with advanced solid tumors.
Rosacea is a frequent ocular and facial disease usually affecting millions of people worldwide. It is a chronic and progressive vascular skin disorder, involving mainly the malar and nasal areas of the face. Rosacea is characterized by erythema, papules, pustules, telangiectasia, facial edema, ocular lesions and in its most advanced and severe form, tissue and sebaceous gland hyperplasia leading to rhinophyma. Rhinophyma, a florid overgrowth of the tip of the nose with hypervascularity and nodularity, is an uncommon progression of rosacea with an unknown cause. Ocular lesions, including mild conjunctivitis, burning and gritty sensation, are common. Blepharitis, the most common ocular manifestation, is a non-ulcerative condition of the eyelid margins.
Psoriasis is a chronic disease affecting approximately 2-3% of the world population. It is characterized by epidermal cell hyperproliferation. Psoriasis symptoms include clearly defined erythematous spots covered by a characteristic crust, epidermal hyperproliferation, peeling and incomplete keratinocyte differentiation. Clinical psoriasis variants include erythrodermic, seborrheic, reverse and photosensitive psoriasis and psoriasis guttata, pustular variants and Reiter's disease. There is currently no cure for psoriasis.
There is still a need for new effective therapies for treating cancer and treating fibrosis.